Anniversary celebration in Hungary organized by the National Széchényi Library
and the Association of Hungarian Librarians, Social Sciences Section
Conference April 18, 2016, Budapest

The history and activity of the American Hungarian Foundation (AHF) located in the US in New Brunswick, NJ (Somerset Street 300 P O 1084 New Brunswick, NJ 08903 Tel 732 846 5777 e-mail: info@ahfoundation.org) an American Hungarian Institute that worth for the special attention of Hungary. Its program especially important for the National Széchényi Library (Országos Széchényi Könyvtár, OSZK) and for those who are interested in or are responsible for our cultural heritage: the government, the profession and the civil sphere. The AHF declares in all its documents distributed at public events

"The American Hungarian Foundation holds as its primary goal the nurturing of understanding and appreciation of Hungarian cultural and historical heritage in the United States of America..."

To fulfill this task the Foundation attempts to collect and preserve the Hungarian and especially American Hungarian or Hungary related objects, art and documents, maintains services and distributes information by its Museum, Library and Archives and by its cultural programs and publications. For six decades it served as a reliable place where Hungarian and American people could turn for information or could offer their inherited Hungarian valuables to be saved as part of our Hungarian heritage and to make it accessible for Hungarians and the general public. Thanks to the AHF a great amount Hungarica material was saved in these 60 years which would have been lost otherwise. In solving this task the AHF has been successful through these long period without any government or official sponsorship by the generous support and donations of American Hungarian people and communities.

The history of the Foundation can be divided into two periods. In the first period 1955-1974 the core program was the Hungarian education. The program started in the 1940s as a Hungarian Studies Chair in Elmhurst College, Illinois under the guidance of Barna Dienes. His successor was by invitation an excellent alumnus August Molnar who became a loyal envoy of the Hungarian heritage program. Beside the successful educational program he planned with great care the future activity as well. To have an organized way of the scholarship program he initiated to establish the American Hungarian Studies Foundation (AHSF).

The statutory meeting of the AHSF on January 31, 1955 elected president August Molnar. He served with great devotion the Foundation in the next fifty years as president successfully. During the following years hundreds of second generation Hungarians attended the school. Along with the Hungarian Studies as the main interest of the AHSF he included in the long range program research, lecture program, concert series and as a main attempt to develop a library and a museum collection. They invited well known Hungarians like Fritz Reiner dirigent of the Chicago Philharmonic, or Andor Klay diplomat and József Reményi professor of literature and writer. One of the most important accomplishments of the period the Bartók concert organized by the Foundation in the Carnegie Hall in New York on February 17, 1957. The Minneapolis Symphony orchestra was conducted by Antal Doráti, the solist on viola was Yehudi Menuhin. This concert as the first complete Bartók concert in the US has its special importance in the Bartók oeuvre. The other important achievement of the period there was the result of the research program, the publication of the Magyar Album in 1957 an encyclopedia of famous Hungarians active outside of Hungary. The purpose of the publication was to give an overview of the Hungarian talent abroad to strengthen the confidence of the second generation Hungarians.

In 1959 the AHSF moved to the Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. On March 6th 1959 the Hungarian Institute was opened at the Rutgers University. Following the 1956 revolution the East European Studies got more and more interested in Hungary and the Hungarian language. From 1966 the university incorporated the Hungarian language program and its expenses covered from the budget. The AHSF continued to support the Hungarian language teaching at Rutgers in New Brunswick and at other but with less and less possibility of participation in education. The activity of the Foundation shifted from education toward the direction of cultural activity. The AHSF set up a committee Dr. Béla C. Máday (American University), Dr. Astric L. Gabriel (Notredam University), Dr. Alexander Nekam (Northwestern University) to consult with the board and the development council and to make a short and a long range plan for the future in the changing situation.

The new program required a new name a more general one to match more the new goals. The new name became a more general version of the previous one. Since 1974 the foundation's official name was introduced as American Hungarian Foundation (AHF). The second period of the Foundation's history was defined as cultural mission for the Hungarian heritage. To sponsor the new extended program required more intensive PR too. The AHF organized many beneficial programs balls, dinners, celebrations, performances and built up more contact with the Hungarian and American communities. New forms of publicity were introduced. The George Washington Award (1961) and the Abraham Lincoln Award (1967) was established. For the Washington Award were selected famous Hungarian scientists and researchers, artists and business men and also people who were great supporters of the Hungarian matters (Theodore von Karman, John Neumann, Eugene Wigner, Antal Doráti, George Szigeti, George Cukor, Alexander Korda, Marcell Breuer, Zoltán Gombos, Theodor Kunz etc), the Abraham Lincoln award was assigned to people and institutes active in the Hungarian community and devoted supporters of the AHF (Albert Kner, Miklós Rózsa, Ödön Vasváry, Julianna Puskás, Albert Tezla etc.). By these acknowledgments the AHF gained new friends, sponsors and intellectual supporters whose expertise in many professional issues was great help as committee members, board members or provided publicity for programs.

In the new area the research gained special importance. In the frame of the AHF a Research Center was organized under the direction of Prof. Béla Máday. As an important step the Hungarian Studies Newsletter was launched. It served as a forerunner of electronic databases of Hungarian Study information. A series of publication was founded under the title Hungarian Reference Shelf issues of this series contains bibliographies of Hungarica publications of different disciplines. In 1976 the US celebrated the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the country. The AHF joined the Bicentennial research program and prepared on the history of the New Brunswick Hungarian community (Hungarian Heritage in New Jersey, The New Jersey Ethnic Experience). The AHF welcomes researchers visiting the Foundation and sponsored publications in Hungary and in the US.

Since the sixties the lectures and concerts got more and more importance in the Foundation's activity (lectures by Elemér Bakó, Ödön Vasváry, Eugene Wigner, C. A. Macartney - concert by Sándor Végh, Livia Rev, Philharmonia Hungarica etc.) This programs were maintained through all the years until the present and in the 2000s a regular series of lectures was launched called the Bolyai lecture series. Important international conferences were organized by the AHF the Bolyai Conference (2002) and the John Neumann Conference (2004).

The most important goal of the period was to collect enough money and build a center for the Foundation to furnish the Museum, Library and Archives, to have space for the programs and offices for the staff. It needed 5 million dollars. By 1984 they reached the half sum, enough for the start. They purchased the empty building of the one times needle factory in the Hungarian neighborhood. The new building the Hungarian Heritage Center the home of the AHF was designed by architect László Papp. The opening celebration on May 21st 1989 was attended by 1000 people most of them from the American Hungarian communities, the city and county leaders were also present. The people were invited to the different exhibitions all over the building Most of the material on display was selected from the rich museum and library collections, paintings and photos by Hungarian artists living outside of Hungary (André Kertész, Robert Capa some of them American Hungarians like Stevan Dohanos, József and Evelyn Domján, Joseph Csatari) and embroideries made by American Hungarians, a selection from the Kecskemét naiv art museum. The AHF began its activity in the new building.

Hungarian Heritage Center

The Museum has an object of historical or art value, folk art and a large and valuable art collection. As part of the cultural mission of the Foundation there are exhibitions constantly but changing periodically. There are two or more large exhibitions following each other in its spacious exhibition hall yearly and some smaller ones in the library, in the smaller conference room or in the lobby from time to time. The theme of the exhibitions is changing: Hungarian history if there is some anniversary (St Istvan, Lajos Kossuth etc.), art (paintings, sculptures, graphics or photos etc.) and Hungarian folk art. The material on display is partly from its own material or from private collections (Nancy Brinken, Albert Pakh etc.), or loaned from other American museums (Brooklyn Museum). Exhibitions have special values which gathers together works of famous Hungarian painters from American collections (Munkácsy, Mednyánszky) or those which give an overview of the oeuvre of an American Hungarian artist unknown in Hungary (Ilona Kárász, Stevan Dohanos). For all exhibitions beautifully designed leaflets, short catalogs or postcards are printed to invite audience and document the exhibition.

The Library is a great source of research and American Hungarian information for any level of interest. The main profile of the collection is American Hungarians or Hungarian literature and Hungary related publications. The size of the present collection is 17 000 books, 26 000 periodical issue, 150 typescript (thesis, dissertation), 1400 non book material different kind of media (records, CD, DVD, casette, video, microfilm). The Library owns an old and rare book collection (Thuróczy Chronicle, Werbőczy, Istvánffy etc.) donated by Imrie de Vegh. The library have in storage other 34 000 saved to be selected the ones match the AHF interest and to help the others to find their proper place for example libraries of Hungary through the Mikes program.

One of the most valuable part of the collections is the Archives. There are in the Archives manuscripts or letters signed by Lajos Kossuth, István Széchenyi, Attila József. The Foundation has over 300 mostly personal bequests. (Luisa Kossuth Mrs. Ruttkai's correspondence, papers of György Szécskay, Documents about Theodore von Karman, UN papers, register of the 1956 refugee camp Camp Kilmer etc). There are two valuable and voluminous deposits the Bethlen Collection and the William Penn Association papers. The number of the bequests grows constantly by new donations.

The AHF has been functioning in the new building already for twenty seven years with great devotion and success. In 2005 celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with an anniversary publication The Hungarian Legacy in America, the history of the American Hungarian Foundation, the first fifty years, hold a George Washington Award Dinner in New York and opened a memorial exhibition in its building in New Brunswick, NJ.

In cooperation with the National Széchényi Library there was memorial celebration in Hungary as well, a conference organized together in Budapest in the Széchényi Library and an exhibition, also an Abraham Lincoln Award dinner at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Abraham Lincoln awards were distributed for Hungarian libraries, universities and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences active in maintaining Hungarian heritage.

August Molnar and the AHF was honored a Hungarian Heritage Prize with a title of Honorary Doctor by Elmhurst College and a painted portrait of him to be preserved by the AHF as the portrait of its founding father.

In 2010 August Molnar has retired and the institute faces a new period of its history. There are tasks and goals to maintain and continue and there are new and different obligations. The AHF had an unquestionable important role for decades in preserving Hungarica source material and disseminating information and knowledge concerning Hungarian heritage. The core program to serve the Hungarian heritage did not change. Still it is the most important to collect the Hungarica material, to preserve them and provide information and services. However the methods and technology has to be changed and to follow the requirements of the twenty first century. To modernize the methodology also the building and to strengthen the contact with Hungary and the Hungarian profession to provide help and service for the new Hungarian Hungarica programs in the US (Kőrösi Csoma, Mikes programs and others, Fulbright and other researchers) and to utilize this contacts and programs for the Foundations future activity. The Board and the new director hopefully will support the new developments needed in combining with the traditional one, but Hungary has responsibility to support the AHF by new contacts and interest by providing expertise in processing material and distributing information through service, exhibitions and publications and by providing funding and monetary sources for the reconstruction of the building according the new standards and to upgrade the service to the required contemporary level.

This short overview hopefully proves the importance of the valuable activity of the AHF and shows the 60 years of fruitful work earned our honor attempted to express by the Hungarian profession organizing the 60 year anniversary conference. The conference program included four lectures, chaired by one of the organizers Judit Villám, President of the Association of Hungarian Librarians, Social Sciences Section. The opening speech was given by Dr. László Boka the Scientific Director of the National Széchényi Library. The papers partly covered the history and ongoing research programs of the AHF, partly the new Hungarica programs concerning the American Hungarian institutions and communities among them the AHF which was launched by the Hungarian Government recently. The anniversary conference attempted to present information about the past, present and future.

The goal of the first paper by Ilona Kovács (Retired Head of Department, NSZL) was to demonstrate the achievements of the AHF to present the history of the AHF and explain its importance (60 years of the American Hungarian Foundation - achievements and their importance). The second paper (A new source of research: a database in preparation from the records of Camp Kilmer, an American camp receiving Hungarian refugees in 1956) by Nóra Deák (ELTE, Head of the School of English and American Studies Library, Fulbright Fellow, PhD candidate) is an excellent example of what kind of important sources for research are preserved by the AHF in its Library and Archive. Nóra Deák as a Fulbright Researcher worked on the registration file of the Hungarian refugee camp Camp Kilmer. The camp was opened for 1956-ers. She gave an account of her work how she digitized the file and made a database proper for further analysis. Nóra Deák also shared the background information concerning the file collected during her research. The third paper by Éva Kaposváry-Dányi (Head, Acquisitions Department, NSZL) (The Mikes Kelemen Programme as a new source of Hungarica collection. The role of NSZL and future plans, achievements and problems) contained first hand information about a new Hungarica program called Mikes Kelemen Program sponsored by the government and has its center in the Széchényi Library directed by Éva Dányi. She explained the goal of the program and the methods of realization, draw some conclusions illustrating by graphics and statistics. The purpose of the program is to save material and bequest without any owner or the owners wish to send it back to Hungary. Scholars are sent by this scholarship program for field work to locate, select material and to arrange the transfer to Hungary. The National Széchényi Library opened a new department to accept, process and distribute among libraries for best use of the material. (For more information see: Information on the Mikes Kelemen Program)

István Hegedűs (Research Assistant, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Centre for Social Sciences, Institute for Minority Studies) the author of fourth paper (The Korosi Csoma Sandor and Mikes Kelemen Programmes - tasks and opportunities on the spot. A participant's experience from New Brunswick (N.J.), with a proposal for the co-ordinating role of AHF) gave an account of a participant in the Kőrösi Csoma and Mikes program on site in the US in the New York region with a center in New Brunswick hosted by AHF. He summarized the experiences of the acceptance, the features of the contacts he needed to built up for successful activity. What kind of benefits he gained through his field work, what kind of problems he faced and about the importance of the program. Interesting discussion followed the conference. Among the speakers Lilla Szabó (art historian, National Gallery, Fulbright Fellow) gave a short presentation about the Museum of the AHF.

The conference was well attended by professionals, researchers, and representatives of government institutions. The presented overview met great interest and initiated appreciation toward the activity of the American Hungarian Foundation during its 60 years long history.